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Make: Online

with the editors and authors of MAKE Saturday January 16, 2010

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Von Slatt's gas and waste oil foundry furnace

One downside to being a big fan of a particular maker is how long it can seem between new projects on his/her site, entries of a multi-part projects journal, what they had for breakfast, anything. Certain builders, I go to their sites (or look at their newsfeeds) obsessively, and it can be maddening waiting for new content. C'mon, make something! Wow me! Entertain me! Dance, dance! And then, when a post or project does show up, it's such a thrill, like a little maker Christmas present. I'm sure some makers feel this "pressure," and like those of us on the consuming end, it's probably both a positive thing (it eggs them on to start and follow through on projects), but it's also... well... pressure, and who likes to be under that?

Anyhoo, I've been following Jake von Slatt's foundry furnace build and was delighted to see a new, meaty post on the gasoline fuel ejector and blower systems. He used a Bosch fuel injector from a BMW (bought on eBay for a couple o' bucks) and metal from an old PC server to construct the blower. I love his use of the brass lamp parts to create an adjustable air-flow controller.

And all you 555 fans out there, he used a simple 555-based pulse-width modulation (PWM) circuit so he could adjust the "duty cycle" (and thus, the fuel-flow) of the fuel injector.

I guess the next step is to introduce the waste-oil system to the furnace. I'll be anxiously eying my RSS feeds... (No pressure!)

Foundry Furnace Part 4 - Gasoline Burner

See the whole foundry series here.

Posted by Gareth Branwyn | 10:01 PM in Makers | | Discuss (0)

Make: Projects - 15-minute ice cream with a dry ice bath

Making ice cream with cryogens stronger than water ice is a fairly common chemistry demonstration stunt. The ideal way to do it, as Theo Gray does in his book Mad Science<, is with liquid nitrogen, which is poured directly into the ice cream mixture, with stirring, and causes it to set up in about 10 minutes. Liquid nitrogen, however, can be rather difficult to get your hands on. Most major cities will have a supplier that will sell it to you, but very often they have large minimum orders and/or require that you own an expensive dewar flask into which they may safely dispense the liquid nitrogen. At -196 C, liquid nitrogen is also fairly dangerous to handle. Read More

Glow-in-the-dark sketch wall and LED pens

There is serious fun to be had with this project from Paulbo of FangleTronics. He shows how he created an awesome glow-in-the-dark wall on which kids (and adults, of course) can write and draw with LED pens. [via Filth... Read More

Are you ready for 72 hours?

Have you checked your emergency kit in a while? Back at the turn of the century, lots of people built survival kits in preparation for the festivities of Y2K. Perhaps you have moved since then, or maybe you never made one. After a natural or manmade disaster, the magic window is considered to be 72 hours for surviving the initial impact. Having a kit at the ready might increase your chances. Certainly while traveling, you can have a plan agreed upon with all of your group. After a major disaster, it is unlikely that emergency response services will be able to immediately respond to everyone's needs, so it's important to be prepared to take care of yourself and your family. Plan to be on your own for at least the first 72 hours. Read More

Lego flame

Flickr user Cole Blaq's Lego flames use florescent and transparent elements to give the illusion of fire without resorting to backlighting. [via brothers-brick.com]... Read More

Mitch Altman Special guest on "ASK AN ENGINGEER" tonight! - Inventor of the TV-B-Gone!

Mitch Altman will be a guest on Adafruit's ASK AN ENGINGEER live video chat tonight at 10pm ET (Saturday 1/16/2010) - He is inventor of the TV-B-Gone, co-founder of the hacker space NOISEBRIDGE and works with Adafruit & MAKE... Read More

Music made of Terminator 2 sound effects

Skynet Symphonic, music composed entirely of audio FX from the movie Terminator 2, Judgment Day. [via io9]... Read More

Instant shelter: Just add water!

Concrete Canvas shelters look like an amazing way to deliver shelter to emergency situations. The building arrives in an airtight bag, is pulled out with a vehicle and inflated. The building can be deployed by just two people (and a bit of machinery) in 45 minutes. After squirting with water, the concrete impregnated fabric sets up and is ready for use in 24 hours. Covering it with an earthen berm helps keep it temperature controlled, and the interior can be kept as a sterile environment. Read More

Johnnolanfilms animatronics

Good morning! www.johnnolanfilms.com's gallery of animatronics via jwz.... Read More

Massimo Banzi's Tinker Toolkit workshop at Interaction10

Explore the basics of Arduino and get to build cool stuff within the first hour. You'll experience first hand accelerometers, touch sensors, colour sensors, and a lot more technology without having to spend a month talking about atoms and electrons. Read More

SparkFun Free Day... behind the scenes

We got 104 comments on our SparkFun Free Day aftermath post, several of which were rather... lively. This video shows what went on at SparkFun HQ during Free Day.... Read More

Brotherton's "Discoveries in Dystopia"

My friend Greg Brotherton, who's presented at Maker Faire, co-runs Device Gallery (with wife Amy) in San Diego, and publishes the amazing Device book series (for which I've written intros), has a show opening tomorrow at the Oceanside Museum... Read More

End-cut log cabin studio

AND it's on wheels (and as far as I know, by "wheels," they don't mean logs underneath) [via Dinosaurs and Robots] Log Cabin Studio... Read More

World's biggest disco ball

Seven-and-a-half metres across, with 1,000 mirrors, suspended 50 metres in the air from a crane, and illuminated by spotlights from all over the city of Paris during this year's annual Nuit Blanche arts festival. The work is La Maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel by French conceptual artist Michel de Broin. [via Dude Craft] Read More

Ask MAKE: Continous rotation potentiometer?

I'm a museum educator, and working on an exhibit where I want to have a knob that you can spin around to change the color of an exhibit. I thought about using a potentiometer, but I am worried that it might break if people try to turn it too far. Read More

Alt.CES: I can haz hydrogen?

On the assumption that hydrogen-powered cars (jet packs?) will be commonplace some day, H-hawker Horizon introduced a consumer gadget at CES that converts water into hydrogen and stores it safely in solid form. The small desktop device simply plugs... Read More

How-To: Light-up costume

Sarah James at Instructables has made this awesome light-up EL wire costume, and shares the process with us in her excellent tutorial.... Read More

Lift heavy things with a modded servo

Need to do some heavy lifting of the physical kind, but only have some wimpy servo motors on hand? Why not follow Antonb's directions to Hack your Servo, and turn it into a powerful linear accelerator. Read More

Natalie Jeremijenko - Interactive Architecture: Reinventing Social Spaces @ EXIT ART

Natalie Jeremijenko @ EXIT ART tonight if you're in NYC. Opening tonight, show is January 9 - February 6, 2010... Waterpod: Autonomy and Ecology, the sixth exhibition of the SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) program, documents and revisits the Waterpod's... Read More

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Videos & Podcasts

Weekend Project: Personal Portable Heater
Keep warm this winter with an easy to make portable heater you can stick in your pocket, under your hat or anywhere for some extra heat. To download The Portable Heater video click here and subscribe in iTunes. Subscribe... More

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